Saturday, December 6, 2014

On 13-14 May 1940, German tanks crossed the Meuse River under the
command of General Heinz Guderian. The town of Stonne and the woody hills of
Mont-Dieu were the single area where it was possible to try to stop this German
advance. On the night of 13 May, the French moved various elements to this area
to attack the Germans;

Operations near the town involved 90,000 German troops and 300 German
tanks, opposed by 42,500 French soldiers and 130 French tanks. The Germans lost
26,500 men (wounded and killed) and 24 tanks, while the French lost 7,500 men
(wounded and killed) and 33 tanks.

Some historians call it the Verdun of WWII:

The village changed hands 17 times over the course of three days of
fighting between 15 May and 17 May 1940.

The battle
of Stonne; setting up the village

We built
the village with our first "destructible buildings". The houses are made of wood pieces. The other buildings are made of foam
panels. Both are "totally destructible
" as you will see. We also had a
public market to increase the number of buildings.

The battle
of Stonne; French troops going forward

In the real
historical event, there were B1bis tank battalion deployed. Unfortunately, we haven’t done any yet.

The French
tanks used are a mixed of real tanks (like the Renault D2) and "out of our
twisted mind" tanks. Only for the French
army, we did create some.

The battle of Stonne, the end.

Wednesday, November 19, 2014

Original idea
behind the 152 mm ML20

I chose to build
the 152 mm ML 20 for Petite Infanterie Red army.Ours was poorly equipped compare to its
German counterpart.

Considering that
the historical Red army artillery was a powerful one (it actually contributed a
lot to Russian victory), we cannot live with the status quo.

The choice of
that model is based on a simple thing: it’s both aggressive and slender.

History of the
152 mm ML20

The original
designation of the 152 mm ML was 152 mm gun-howitzer model 1937.

This gun was
design to replace the old 152 mm Pushka obr. 1910 which was unsuited for mobile
warfare because of its weight.Like many
other Russian guns, the 152 mm ML20 was the result of continuous improvements,
baby steps by baby steps and not any kind of quantum leap revolution.

Source: The
Encyclopedia of weapons of World War II. Metrobooks Publishing, 2002.

The best way to
describe the 152 mm ML20 can be found in this Wikipedia quotation:

"The ML-20 was one of the most successful Soviet artillery pieces of World War II. Its characteristics positioned it between classical short-range howitzers and special long-range guns. Compared to the former, the ML-20 has better range (e.g. the German 15
cm sFH 18 had range of
13.3 km), which often allowed it to shell positions of enemy artillery
while remaining immune to enemy fire. Its advantage over the latter was in
weight and cost, and therefore in mobility and production rate. For example,
the German 15 cm
K 39 with range of
24.7 km weighed 12.2 tons and only 61 pieces were built; of the excellent 17 cm K 18 (23.4 t, 29.6 km) 338 pieces were
manufactured; lighter 10.5 cm sK 18 (5.6 t, 19.1 km) was more common (2,135
pieces) but its 15 kg shell was much less powerful than a 44 kg shell
of ML-20. German attempts to produce an analogue to the ML-20 were
unsuccessful. The 15 cm sFH 40 was never produced due to construction
defects; the 15 сm sFH 42 had insufficient range and only 46 pieces were built.
In 1943 and 1944 Wehrmacht announced requirements for a 15 cm howitzer
with a range of 18 km, but none reached production."

Saturday, October 18, 2014

The russian 203 mm howitzer model B4.

The idea: built an 203 mm howitzer for the Petite Infanterie line-up

I knew the weapon but I hadn't any intend to actually built one until I found ..tracks! As you can notice, this gun is on caterpillars which is not common. It's seems that only russian gun were mounted on a track chassis. The reason? The russian state factories had invested a lot in tractor production in the 1920s so to use tracks for a gun was an obvious choice.

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﻿

The "beast" on the field somewhere in Europe

Russian 203 mm heavy howitzer in a museum in Russia

The built: a scale model of the russian 203 mm howitzer

The tracks on the gun come from a kit bought at a dollar store. The backhoe kit was at the right scale and a used the tracks to built the gun. Eventhough, I hadn't any scale drawing, the rest of the work was pretty easy to do. I think the overal result is quite good.

Tuesday, March 4, 2014

This blog is, a
priori, impossible to classify. Our philosophy can be summed up by "serious fun". It is a heterogeneous mixture of “game” and “history”;
“fiction” and “reality”. The “us”
referes to my brother and I. We both share this hobby and it’s our work
which is exposed on those pages.Genesis of a passion.
In 2004, I received an email from my
brother with a hyperlink to a manufacturer's website of 1/32 figures.
Those “plastic men” were from the First World War.
Immediately, the memories of our childhood
resurface. The epic battles fought
in the sandbox in
the back of the family home with
"green men" were back alive.
The great adventure of Small Infantry begins!
Although originally made ​​the first purchases
based on the theaters of WWI,
our consuming passion for DIY quickly led us
to evolve. WWII was the beginning of mecanized warfare
and it became our new playground. What could be better than an endless list of guns,
trucks and tanks ready to be scratchbuilt out of wood by your humble servants?In summary. If you have any interest in miniatures, wargaming, military history and strategy, you
should appreciate our blog. We apologize in advance for the quality of writing in English. Shakespears language is
not our mother tongue. This being said, pictures is an universel
language and our blog is full of them. Enjoy!